Show Me
by Zesty Bod
Summary: An alternate ending to 8x14, where Bonnie doesn't let Damon off the hook so easily for nearly killing himself. One-shot.


**I really don't have time for a new story, but the ending to 8x14 bothered me, so this is my attempt to correct it. I wouldn't shut down a possible second part to this if I can find the time! BTW, this is a soft M rating, but just trying to be on the safe side.**

 **Show Me**

What was supposed to be a champagne toast for taking down the devil quickly deteriorated into a drunken bourbon fest in front of the fireplace, with Bonnie and Damon taking swigs straight from the bottle and passing it back and forth between each other.

"I can't believe we're gonna have to deal with Katherine's crazy ass," Damon said as he stared at the fire.

"Yep," Bonnie said with a sigh. "And she's probably on her way here right now to kill you."

"Me? What about you?"

"Pretty sure she hates you way more than she hates me."

He frowned and took a big gulp.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Why can't we ever catch a break in this stupid town?"

She shrugged and he passed the bottle back to her. He smirked when she knocked it back and drank without even grimacing.

"It's a good thing you showed up tonight," he said. "Or else your boy Damon would have been worm food. How'd you know where I was?"

"I had a vision," she said. "I saw you and Elena and fire and I just ran in your direction."

"Bonnie Bennett, always Johnny-on-the-Spot," he teased, and she smiled.

"What'd you do to get Cade to kill you anyway? It couldn't have possibly been your winning personality."

"Actually, he didn't kill me. He was gonna kill either Stefan or Elena so I offered myself up instead."

Bonnie frowned. "What?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, if you must make me relive the whole sordid ordeal, he set Elena's coffin on fire and threatened to kill Stefan and he tried to make me choose. But instead of picking one over the other, I gave him a third option: me."

Her frown deepened. "That still doesn't tell me how you ended up dead."

"I stabbed a stake through my heart." He grimaced and rubbed a hand over his chest. "It hurt, too."

She blinked several times and then said, "so you killed yourself."

"Yep." He popped the 'p' sound and took another chug. When he offered her the bottle, she didn't take it. She just stared at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

His voice seemed to snap her out of her thoughts, and she shook her head and started to stand.

"No reason," she said. After she was on her feet, she smoothed out her jeans. "It's late. I'll see you later."

He frowned at her abrupt departure but then shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. We'll need a good night's sleep if we're gonna figure out how to stop Katherine. Assuming she doesn't kill us all before we wake up."

He expected Bonnie to laugh or at least smile at his joke. She didn't. In fact, she left without saying anything else to him. Something nagged at him and told him that she was upset, but he'd gone through quite a bit of bourbon and his judgment was likely impaired. He tossed back the rest of the drink and then stumbled up the stairs and fell face-first onto his bed. He slept like the dead until the next morning and he was somewhat surprised to find himself still in one piece. His mind immediately began working on ways to fight Katherine. He grabbed his phone so he could spread the good news, and he saw he already had a text from Stefan.

 _Proposed to Caroline last night. She said yes. Don't call or text unless it's an ER_

Damon found himself smirking a little, a combination of happy for and envious of his little brother. Leave it to Stefan to barely be human for a minute before popping the question. He called Stefan's number and smiled at how irritated his brother sounded.

"Didn't you read my text?" Stefan asked in a grumbly, just-woke-up voice.

"I did. Congrats. And trust me, I wouldn't be trying to ruin your post-proposal bliss if it wasn't an emergency. It is."

Stefan groaned. "What, Damon? And if this has anything to do with us being out of bourbon, I swear to God…"

"Kai gave Bonnie a little tidbit of information last night," Damon said, not bothering to let him finish. "We may have killed Cade but apparently Hell has a next-man-up mentality because there's a new Satan in town and she's a real bitch."

There was a second of silence, and then Stefan said, "please don't tell me it's who I think you're going to say it is."

"Starts with 'Kath' and ends with 'erine.'"

"Oh my God," Stefan groaned. Damon heard Caroline mumbling in the background and Stefan said to her, "Katherine's back. She's the new devil. We're all gonna die."

"Especially you, newly human bro," Damon teased.

"We'll be at the boarding house in twenty minutes."

They hung up and Damon called Bonnie next, but it went straight to voicemail.

"Bon-Bon," he said. "Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey. I know you might be a big hungover from last night's festivities but it's time to talk shop about our favorite evil bitch goddess. Call me. Or just come over to the house. Stefan and Caroline are on their way."

He called Ric and Matt, too, because he figured where Katherine was involved, it was all hands on deck. By the time he showered and changed clothes, Stefan and Caroline had arrived. It wasn't too much later that Matt, Ric and Ric's little munchkins showed up, too. They all gathered around the Salvatore living room to discuss how to proceed, but Bonnie still hadn't showed up. Damon frowned when he checked his phone and didn't have any messages or calls from her. Another call on her phone went to voicemail.

"Has anyone heard from Bonnie?" he asked.

The group stopped talking and everyone shook their heads.

"Last I saw her was with you," Stefan said.

"I tried to call her to tell her about the engagement but she didn't call me back," Caroline said.

Damon's frown deepened and even though the conversation with back to Katherine, his mind was on Bonnie. It wasn't like her to have her phone off. And she knew they would need to have a team meeting. He couldn't help but worry that something had happened, and maybe that something was Katherine. He stuffed his phone in his back pocket and headed for the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" Ric called.

"To Bonnie's. You guys keep going. I'll be back."

He hopped into his car and gunned it to Bonnie's place. He jogged up to her door and knocked hard, and his veins thumped with anxiety with every unanswered knock. He was about to kick the damn door down, when it swung up and there stood his little witch, perfectly healthy. He narrowed his eyes at her and pointed an accusatory finger.

"I've been calling and texting you."

Bonnie looked completely unbothered as she shrugged and went back inside.

"I didn't have my phone on."

"Yeah, I gathered that. Is there a reason you were out of reach from everyone? You know Katherine's on the loose. I thought you were dead or something!"

"As you can see, I'm fine," she said without turning around.

"What the hell is going on with you?"  
It was only after she didn't answer him that he took note of everything around him. On her bed and the floor were open suitcases, filled with clothes. She had folded clothes in every available space and she hauled another suitcase out of her closet.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Packing," she said with a 'duh' tone.

"I can see that," he said through gritted teeth. "Why?"

"Because I'm leaving."

"And going where?"

"I haven't decided yet."

He blinked a few times.

"Bonnie, what am I missing here? Why are you leaving?"

"Because, Damon." She finally turned to look at him and he saw all too familiar expressions written on her face. Pain. Hurt. Disappointment. "There's nothing for me here. Enzo is dead. We literally just fought the devil, and now we'll have to deal with Katherine. If that's not a sign that it's time for me to get the hell out of this town, then I don't know what is."

She went back to packing and anger welled up inside of him.

"So that's it? You're just gonna pack up and leave like a coward?"

"If that's how you want to see it, sure."

"And you weren't going to say goodbye to me?"

"You mean like you didn't say goodbye to me?" she asked.

He threw his hands up in frustration. "I apologized for that! I thought you forgave me."

"I did. And I'm not talking about when you dessicated yourself and left me for three years."

"Then what are you talking about?!" he screamed.

Bonnie's jaws tightened and she slowly turned to look at him. Her eyes had filled up with tears.

"I'm talking about last night," she said lowly. He started to ask what she was mad about from the previous night but she held up her hand to silence him. "I'm talking about when you stabbed yourself in the chest. I'm pretty sure that suicide counts as 'leaving without saying goodbye.'"

"Are you serious right now?" He scoffed. "Elena's coffin was on fire and Stefan had a foot in the grave! I couldn't exactly pull out my cell phone to call you and say 'Hey Bon, 'bout to kill myself, TTYL!'"

"No, maybe you couldn't have," she agreed. She walked closer to him. "But did you even think about me? Did I cross your mind for even a millisecond before you plunged a stake through your own heart?"

He wanted to lie. He really did. He knew that was all she needed to hear, that he'd considered her before killing himself. But she knew him well enough to sniff out his untruths.

"No," he said. "I didn't think about you."

She pressed her lips together and the tears she had been holding back spilled down her cheeks.

"That's what I thought," she said. "You just promised me, Damon. You _just_ promised me that you wouldn't leave me again. But that's exactly what you tried to do, and you didn't even consider how your death might affect me."

"Bonnie…"

"Do I mean _anything_ to you?" she asked, and her voice broke.

"Of course you do," he said immediately. "You know that. How could you ask me that?"

"Because I don't know it! You say I matter to you. You tell me I'm your best friend and you don't know what you'd do without me. But then you go and show me exactly how little I mean to you. You keep hurting me, Damon. And I won't let you do it anymore. I won't let you keep breaking my heart."

She quickly wiped her face and tried to reign in her emotions, but even after she got back to packing, she cried. Damon just stood where he was, feeling like a liar and the worst friend in the world. He didn't know what to say or do, so he didn't say or do a thing while she zipped up two suitcases and packed another. It was only after she finished the third bag and tried to wheel it out the front door that he snapped back to reality and chased her down. He grabbed her arm and turned her to him. She looked so pretty, even with red eyes and wet cheeks. He reached a hand up to wipe her tears, but she turned her head away from him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You're right. I keep screwing things up with you. But you have to know that I don't mean to hurt you. What I did last night…" He tried to find the right words, but shrugged. "I don't know. I thought I was doing a good thing. I was trying to be selfless for once. I thought it was the kind of thing that you would do. I'm sorry I didn't think about how much my death would hurt you. I guess, maybe, I didn't realize it would matter so much to you."

She pressed her lips together again and took a minute before she said, "then you haven't been paying attention."

She tried to turn again but he held on to her arm.

"What can I say to fix this?" he begged to know. "I hate to see you upset and I hate to know I'm the reason. I don't want you to leave and I definitely don't want you out there by yourself with Katerina Petrova on the prowl."

"You can't fix it," she told him. "Because it it's one thing I've learned about you, it's that your actions speak much louder than your words. And your actions tell me everything I need to know about where I stand in your life."

She tried to leave again, but he held her arm tightly. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Let me go, Damon."

"No."

"Let me go!" she yelled.

"NO!" he yelled back.

She raised her arm up to slap him, but he caught her hand before it met his face. With both of her arms in his possession, he did the one thing he could think of to show her that she did matter to him, that he didn't want her to leave, and that he damn sure wasn't going to let her go out there and get killed for the five hundredth time. He pulled her body to his and before she could object or he could consider the consequences, he kissed her.

His lips couldn't have been on hers for more than a second, but when he pulled away, he knew it was a second that he couldn't take back. Her eyes were wide with shock, and he started to offer some sort of explanation or apology. But then he saw that her eyes weren't just wide; her pupils were dilated. The pulse in her neck throbbed noticeably. Her scent hit him, but it wasn't the sweet apple cinnamon smell he was used to. It was deeper, heavier, spicier. It was her arousal, and it made his fangs nearly burst through his gums.

He knew that he should have left or let her go or something to break the tension, but he didn't. Her desire for him was clouding his mind until all he could think was that if she wanted to leave, he was going to give her something to remember him by. That was the driving force in his head when he crushed her to him and kissed her again. When she didn't kiss him back, he knew that she was trying to be the sensible one. So he slipped his tongue in between her lips. The moan that came from her only ruined his brain even more. She unclenched her hands and tried to tug them out of his grip. When he felt them going for his neck instead of away from his body, he let her go. Bonnie responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and swirling her tongue against his, and lust snapped inside of him like a rubber band.

Their mouths battled aggressively as his hands flew to her butt and squeezed it. She moaned again and all he could think about was how many times he'd thought about grabbing her ass in the prison world. Those short shorts and ridiculous overalls that didn't cover a thing had driven him crazy. His fingers literally itched just to touch her backside, and he was so happy to know that it was as full as he'd hoped. He used his grip on her butt to hoist her up in his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

They were still engaged in a heated tongue exchange when he started walking them back to her bed. He stumbled over her bags but didn't let her go until they were at the bed. He released her mouth only to drop her on the mattress, and then he was on top of her before either of them could think better of it. They kissed hungrily and he took her hands and held them above her head. He surged his hips into her and she moaned loudly when his erection pressed in between her legs. His mind flooded with images of her screaming for him, of all the things he was going to do to her, of all the ways she'd finally finally let loose. He abandoned her mouth to attack her neck, but he never stopped thrusting into her.

"Ugh, Damon," she moaned.

His phone rang and buzzed in his back pocket, but he ignored it. He kept on kissing and sucking and biting every inch of skin he could get. He held her wrists hostage with one hand while the other groped her breasts and then slid underneath her shirt. His phone rang again but he still ignored it. He had just gotten his hand behind her to undo her bra when the phone rang again and he growled angrily. He yanked his hand way from the bra and ripped the phone out of his back pocket. He sat up just enough to bark "WHAT?" into the phone.

There was silence for a few seconds, and then a voice.

"D…Damon?"

It was like someone had doused him with a bucket of ice water. All those hot-blooded lusty desires he'd just had for Bonnie evaporated, and he was consumed with guilt. Not only for taking advantage of his vulnerable best friend, but for betraying Elena. Somehow he'd forgotten that he was trying to get her back. And then she'd called him.

"Hello?" she asked timidly.

"Yeah," he said quickly. "Yeah. It's me."

"I just woke up," she said. "Where are you? Can I see you? Please, I need to see you."

His throat dried to the point where he couldn't even swallow, and he kept nodding his head even though she couldn't see him.

"Damon?"

"I'm on my way."

He hung up the phone and stared down at Bonnie, who was looking at him with eyes that were a combination of worried and wanting. Her chest went up and down rapidly and her neck was littered with his scrape marks and red from his sucks. Her shirt was halfway up and her wrists were still in his hand.

"Damon?" she asked.

She couldn't have known that she sounded just like Elena had on the phone.

"What's wrong? What's happening?"

He wanted to lie so badly, but he couldn't. Not to her, not anymore.

"Elena," he said. He almost choked on the next words. "She's awake."


End file.
